Shadows

Ashes Trilogy, Book 2

By: Ilsa J. Bick

Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren

Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

The Apocalypse does not end. The Changed will grow in numbers. The Spared may not survive.

Even before the EMPs brought down the world, Alex was on the run from the demons of her past and the monster living in her head. After the world was gone, she believed Rule could be a sanctuary for her and those she’d come to love.

But she was wrong.

Now Alex is in the fight of her life against the adults, who would use her, the survivors, who don’t trust her, and the Changed, who would eat her alive. Welcome to Shadows, the second book in the haunting, apocalyptic Ashes Trilogy: Where no one is safe and humans may be the worst of the monsters.

©2012 Ilsa J. Bick (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

What's not to love?

The narrator is brilliant! I was making the escape, I was being held captive, I was drowning in the lake, I was so sucked in! Excellent ride!

Disappointed :(

I really like book 1, Ashes, and was looking forward to book 2. It totally lost my interest. Too many new characters were introduced and it didn't make me care about them. Tom and Alex were not really in the story until the end. We learned nothing new about the Changed or about anything else. Where's the little girl? She was not part of the story and I forgot her name already. She is mentioned once or twice. Before I buy the 3rd book I'm going to read the reviews. I read the reviews for this book and thought it can't be that bad, the first book as good. Listen to the reviews on this one and skip it.

A little more interesting than the others

What do you think your next listen will be?

I listened to the to the third in this series as well, but should not have. Don't waste your time and money!

What didn’t you like about Katherine Kellgren’s performance?

The narrator tries too hard to be dramatic - the result is shrieking and hard to follow action scenes.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

This book was a little better than the others in the series - only a little. There were a few interesting plot introductions and characters.... but in the end, the reader can't figure out why they were introduced in the first place. I was definitely disappointed.

Any additional comments?

Don't bother with this series. Waste of time and money. I doubt I will ever read anything from this author again, and I will certainly avoid any audiobooks read by this narrator.

Stories for ADD

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I would not recommend this book to anyone. I would suggest reading Ashes and stopping there.

Has Shadows turned you off from other books in this genre?

For the rest of this series, yes. I was unsure of the rest of the series after the first book but curious. Now, I'm only 3 hours into the second book and curious no more. there will be no purchase of the 3rd book for me.

How could the performance have been better?

I don't think she could have fixed it. It's like blaming an actor for a flop movie.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment and Apathy.

Any additional comments?

Earlier in the book the author herself writes of apathy due to prolonged fear. Her own constant changes in charter story lines that ramp up your already high adrenaline levels due to what's occurring, causes you yourself to lose any sense of connection with the characters and then to become apathetic towards the story, the worse thing an author can do. If I can't care to finish this book, how can I care to pick up any of her other books? Give us a break. Stick with one character for more than 2 pages, build them up so you grow to care about what happens to them before flipping over to another story line to kill some other stranger we don't have any emotional attachment to.

Exhausting! I couldn't finish.

First let me say that I think Bick is a very talented writer - that's probably what got me hooked into Ashes. The writing in this is still of a very high quality and I will continue to look out for what she writes in the future. But this book just wasn't to my taste - particularly as an audiobook - and I abandoned it.

As a lot of reviewers have said - Ashes (the first book in the series) has a distinctly different tone in the second half of the book. Shadows seems to continue in the vein of the second half of Ashes - which is the half that I didn't enjoy so much.

There was a lot of blood and gore which I understand I should expect from a "zombie book" but it was so relentless it lost shock value and became... a bit gross. It taught me that I probably don't enjoy overly scary or gory Audiobooks - the constant crisis is just too much for me. Listening to it could be a good ploy if you're on a diet though... this book put me off my food a number of times..!

But one of the main things that caused me to stop listening was the fact that there were so many characters, I just couldn't keep up. This was particularly hard to deal with in audio - as opposed to when you have the hard copy in front of you and you can go back and reread to figure out who's who. There is also no recap of the Ashes storyline so if it's been a while since you read Ashes (as was the case for me) you may have trouble picking up the story again.

The performance was good, Katherine is obviously a talented actress. Her blood curdling screams terrified me at times but I'm sure if you like the story, you'll be happy with the performance.

Overall, great writing but too many characters and too much gore for me. If you like gory zombie action - and if you recap Ashes before you start - I think you'll like this book.

Annoying narration and dragged out writing

Narrator gets super worked up during action scenes to the point where it's annoying.

Author repeats and drags out the action of the book.

Zombies? What zombies?????????

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

If the Author would’ve stuck to the original story. I felt like we went from a zombie trilogy, to a romance novel. The book reads like a Twilight-type love triangle. I felt like I should be rooting for Team Chris, or Team Tom. Ugh, and who were all these new characters? The story went from fighting the zombies to fighting an Amish community. I WILL NOT listen to book 3!

Has Shadows turned you off from other books in this genre?

No, just the author. Her writing styles leaves a lot to be desired.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Her voice annoying at times. Though I feel she potrayed the characters well.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Annoyance and frustration. Whenever Alex was having a “moment”, we heard:

NO, NO, NO!!
WHY, WHY, WHY!!
I CAN’T, I CAN’T, I CAN’T!!
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!
NOT NOW, NOT NOW, NOT NOW!!

The whole story was like this. It got really old, really fast.

Any additional comments?

The “rational” part of me wanted to just say forget it, and stop listening. But the OCD part of me had to finish. Such a huge disappointment.

Very Disappointing Sequel

Any additional comments?

Do you enjoy being screamed at for 13 hours? Then this is the book for you!

Don't dare turn down the volume when the narrators is screaming at you, because the next minute she'll be whispering.

Over all this series took an idiotic turn for the worse. I know to expect some silly love triangle in a teen genre book, and the first book hinted at it, but now our ignorant heroine is shown to be SO incredibly irresistible that even the zombie kid falls for her? Really? Barf.